The Uninvited (The Julianna Rae Chronicles Book 1) (26 page)

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THE JULIANNA RAE

CHRONICLES

CHRONICLE #2

ARAL BEREUX

Prologue

2
ND
MAY 2018, CAMP 2.2.1.

To be mistaken as a fool was not his style.

Taris sat behind his desk with his feet up, watching the smoke curl above his head from the cigarette hanging loosely between his lips. The events from the night before still lingered.

His bruised eye throbbed from the car accident, but it served his temper. He poked at the fresh swelling, studying his reflection in the comms screen. His eye was slowly closing over.

Pulling away from the sting of his pressing fingers, a hiss escaped his parted lips. No healing himself tonight, he thought. Though his sight blurred a little, he leaned back from his reflection again, to consider if blurry vision was the wisest choice for the evening.

Elizbeth’s caress had dulled the pain, for the time she was with him. While they rested in his bed, she had tried to heal his face until he swatted her away. Instead, they listened to the radio, propped between them as they lay naked, waiting and hoping for his men to announce the location of their missing target.

‘We need to find her,’ she said.

‘We’ll find her,’ he replied.

‘They killed Doug Cathan?’ she had asked again.

He’d nodded as he stared at the ceiling. 

Bang!
One bullet hole to the head. They’d saved him the trouble, and for that alone he wanted to thank Caden personally.

In time,
he thought.

‘The Senate swings in your favor now that he’s dead,’ she said.

The thought made his smile turn sour under the sting of his eye. Then, he turned his attention to the radio, ignoring the soft caress from Julianna’s mother, for its empty static.

Now he listened to it again in his office.

The radio traffic turned low. He monitored his men tracking his escapee, waiting patiently for his soldiers to announce her Identification Marker location.

It was a long shot. Her company was cautious. They were clever, cunning, always one step ahead. Knowing this, he knew they’d rip the IDM from her side the moment she let her guard down. They wouldn’t risk capture, not after their rough night. They’d be relentless with her.

The comms bleeped from the platform that held it. He slid his finger lazily along the bottom of the rectangular, glass screen, to answer the incoming call. The desk behind it disappeared, the General’s image inside the plate, stared at him with dark watcher’s eyes and a furrowed brow.

Taris leaned into his chair, waiting for the face to commence its tirade of abuse. The General continued his seething stare, but not aimed at the Commander, or his men. Catching the Seer, who continually out-ran the entire Militia, was becoming a very, personal issue.

Taris reached for the glass beside the comms. The ice rattled against its sides as he lifted it to his lips. The scotch rolled down into the back of his throat, with a brisk grab. He waited for the blast. Nothing came.

‘They tell me Cathan is dead. True?’

Taris nodded.

‘Good. Never cared for the man.’ The General’s eyes darted over the room behind Taris. ‘And the girl?’

‘We’re searching for her. She’s joined at the hip with the Councilor, and his brother. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say Caden Madison is Julianna’s watcher.’

‘You say it as though it were a joke, Tarisos. The intelligence that we have suggests a new Council is establishing itself underground. A new faction is rumored, and I’m none too impressed, if it’s true. I want them brought in, Commander.
All of them.
’

Taris swirled the ice-cubes around in the glass, watching the amber liquid flow roughly over them. They clinked at the glass sides as he took another mouthful. If only it were so simple. The thought annoyed him, as much as his black eye. He’d gotten away from Caden and Daniel with sheer luck. His soldiers weren’t so lucky, and Cathan – well the hole in his head ended that long life.

He smiled, not a forced one like most days, this one was real. Julianna was badly injured; the General didn’t have that informative piece. He’d left that one from his final report.

‘I’ve been chasing Caden Madison for a year, and I’m no closer. The Council, if the rumors are true, explain why he continues to elude our capture. He’s stronger than me, has more abilities – he has a hell of a lot of support.’
You’re a shitty General, with all due respect, asshole.

But he was careful to keep himself quiet in his thoughts; his whisper was for himself.

The General furrowed his brow. From behind his own desk, he had a look of disbelief in his lined face. His grey eyes narrowed.

Taris waited.

‘He’s also three centuries wiser than you.’

Taris smirked behind his drink. ‘If the Senate were to part with their wisdom a little more generously, maybe,
just maybe,
I could fulfill your request, and bring them all in. On their bended knees of course.’

‘And also us,’ the General said curtly. ‘You have more ability than most your age, Tarisos. More than what Caden and Bastiaan ever had.’

Taris remained cool at the use of his ancient name. ‘It’s not enough. The rules have changed. You want them alive; you need to give me more.’

He was playing the odds; the General’s crumpled expression suggested they were already considering the ambitious option. Taris was his predecessor, and without him, the Senate was shot to hell, along with the Old Council. There’d be no Militia, too. The moment of crisis was upon them, he had them by the proverbial balls.

‘Don’t bullshit me, General. I’m a little past that tonight.’ He poked at his eye again – damn it was hurting like a hot day in hell.

The General didn’t doubt him. ‘We’ll discuss it further at the meeting.’

‘Discuss away. They have Daniel Rae with them too…’
yeah, that got your interest.
‘That’s some heavy duty watchering going on in that there group of misfits.’ He leaned into the comms. ‘While y’all waste your time talking—’

‘All right, all right, Tarisos!’ The General’s hand clamped down over the edge of his desk. Paperwork and files scattered in front of his tired, bloodshot eyes. His four hundred-and-twenty-two years were telling his age. The grey hair was becoming more prevalent; Taris thought he could see a vein pumping in the side of his neck.

But, they were communicating now. Their page was almost on the same number. The General’s eyes flickered, and Taris humored in the stirring of the old man’s Tulpas. If he pushed hard enough, he wondered if he could induce the old man into a brain hemorrhage.

Taris tried to remember the day he had changed, when he turned from being the quiet one, to becoming a leader.

‘You’re a dark horse, Tarisos.’

His lips curled into an arrogant smile for the General.
Yes indeed,
he thought. He nodded.

‘Why don’t you pay old Hal a visit? Hear what he has to say about the New World Order these days, and his grandson.’

Taris drained the last remnants of his drink, and stumped out his cigarette on the spent comms, which doubled as a paperweight on his desk. Taking Hal on alone was suicide. The old man was old, but he wasn’t redundant.

He shook his head. ‘Not without the Senate’s help.’

The radio that usually hung on his belt was propped beside the comms. It spoke to him, and the General listened. Even in the small comms plate, Taris noted the curiosity written across the General’s face. He pressed in the receiver button without raising it, keeping his eyes fixed on the General, absorbing the expression his cool manners created.

‘Go for Delta.’

‘We have the location of Julianna Rae’s IDM chip traced, sir.’

Taris smiled. ‘See, General, give me something to work with and I give you results.’

‘Tarisos, I said—’

Taris raised his hand; certain it filled in the General’s own comms screen in Central Command Head Quarters. Others were watching and listening in from the corners the comms didn’t reach.

‘You talk in your meeting, General. I have a Seer to hunt down.’

He gave the General a wink, and closed down the comms with a slide of his finger.

Taris reached over the desk to press his radio receiver again. He’d just shut the General down. The peculiar rush it gave him in the center of his being, lingered.

‘Delta to base….ready the drones, and have two squads meet me at the gates.’

Ten minutes is all he would give them.

He waited for the ‘yes sir,’ and the crackle to end the private, radio frequency. For now, the Senate was where he wanted them – in the palm of his large, sweaty hand, and it was enough to satisfy his frustrations.

Tonight’s hunt was for his vanity, but they were close. He could sense her confusion, and feel her pain. He rubbed his chin, and closed his hazel eyes, reveling in Julianna’s chaos. She was close, very close. Their bind between them betrayed her. IDM or not, she would be found, and the Senate would finally have their Seer. In turn, they would finally have their war raged against the Rebellion.

His lips parted into a toothy smile, at the thought.

Elizbeth returned to his side to run her fingers along the nape of his neck.

‘You have a beautiful touch, Beth.’

She leaned in with her swollen belly, touching his arm with it gently. ‘As do you,’ she whispered. ‘
General.
’

His grin widened.

Yes, soon he supposed, he would be.

Chapter 1

THE CAVES OF DEVIL’S CANYON,

30 MILES WEST OF CAMP 2.2.1.

Caden smoothed water over her hot skin while she muttered in her sleep. The waterfall crashed against the rocks outside the cave, drowning her whispers, but Caden listened as she begged for her life.

Not surprising
, he looked around at the others sleeping soundly.
She should have died yesterday.

Julianna bolted in her delirium, upright in the bed nested for her.

Caden eased her down with a gentle hand to her shoulder, and a calm voice. He splashed more water on her skin where the blanket didn’t cover her: her neck, face, shoulders, and arms, and when he looked down into her eyes, they met his gaze with a heaviness that wouldn’t permit her to open them fully.

‘You still with me?’ he asked quietly, but his voice bounced along the rock walls. ‘Come on J Rae, talk to me, sweetheart. You need to fight this fever. You have to do this one yourself; even I can’t heal a fever away.’

‘Daddy?’

He grimaced. More water, he needed more water. The bottle he was holding was empty.

The water cascading over the cave lip, which hid them away from their enemy, was a short walk. The water fell, bouncing the moonlight, and stray beams of white light penetrated the darkness inside the damp cave.

Devo was the hero this time. Caden watched the sleeping girl in his brother’s arms. She’d wandered behind a tree for privacy, and in the midst of squatting; accidently found the caves in the area he was unfamiliar with.

Julianna’s hand grabbed his pant leg and he looked down.

‘Cade?’

He returned to her side. ‘Yeah it’s me.’ He felt her forehead. ‘I’ll be gone all of five minutes, for some more water.’

‘Please don’t leave me.’

‘Not leaving, only five short minutes. Bas, Danny, and Devo are just over there sleeping. You’re not alone, sweetheart.’

He stood again; breaking her grip from his pants gently, with a step toward the rushing water, and gave her a five minute hand signal, before turning his back to her pleading eyes.              

Caden’s tall stride took him over a thin, but deep fissure, dividing the rock into two. He stepped onto a ledge that he jumped from, before trailing to the edge of the cave where the water fell. He crouched at its lip. The water slammed down in crashes, bouncing from the worn out rock where it pooled, to create a second flow into the lake below.

He glanced down to where the water struck. They were high above the lake, and under different circumstances, he fancied to visit the area again. It reminded him of his childhood so long ago, in the caves high above the French countryside. It was a lifetime ago. 

He smiled to himself.
It was a lifetime ago, or three, if you were a norm. But I’m not a norm. I’m a watcher, powerful at that
, and his smile disappeared with the tired look he received from Julianna, over his shoulder. Not powerful enough to keep the girl safe from herself.

How the hell do you keep someone safe from themselves?

His head shook with the thought. If he hadn’t doubled back for the last check at the camp, if they’d left with everyone else at the time, instead of searching for leftover supplies from the panicked bug out. He screwed up his face.

No point wrestling with it now.

The water continued its attack on the rock ledge, into the lake below.  It was a difficult climb with Julianna on his back, even with the four of them to help. They’d barely made it to the cave’s safety. Those memories wouldn’t leave in a hurry; he was stuck with his guilt, no matter how stunning the landscape in front of him was under the darkened sky.

He held the bottle under the flow, to catch the fresh water. The cool sprays of mist flickered over his skin, soothing the searing heat she had radiated since their arrival a few hours earlier. Her delusions were becoming worse, and her stomach, where the bullet had left fragments, and where the knife had stabbed her, was red and swollen from infection, despite his efforts to heal her again.

Julianna screamed.

It startled him.

Water spilled over the bottle as he leapt to his feet, feeling the change take over his body. His eyes grew dark, while his senses heightened for potential threats. A chill shivered him, but there wasn’t a danger in sight, just her wild imagination attacking her again in a fever.

Bas was awake and cradling Julianna. Caden relaxed at the sight of his older brother rocking her gently in his arms, whispering fatherly reassurance to settle her down into lucidity again.

The bottle overflowed under the water. He pulled it back, but didn’t leave the edge without splashing water over his own sweaty face. The day had been long; their argument was still fresh in his mind, before she had collapsed. Any hint of guilt that he felt, ebbed away when he scanned the prisoner she insisted on taking.

Damn noc.

He sensed more arguments to follow. The outcome of a prisoner in his camp – what was left of it – was an oversight on her part.  His hand would be forced sooner rather than later, and she’d see him for the creature he really is.

Pussy whipped!

The voice in his head circled him like a vulture to its prey. Indeed, he agreed, he didn’t want the proverbial genie unleashed just yet. He needed to keep calm or Julianna would bolt as quick as her legs would carry her; something he couldn’t risk happening, or he’d answer to a lot of people higher than him on the food chain.

The risk of the noc escaping was slim. The bounds he had fastened around his wrists, down to his ankles and back again, had the noc doubled up. Only a Houdini of the preternatural world would get out of something so carefully constructed.

Caden agonized over the unconscious body for a long time. He crouched to study the restraints security. The breeze stirred the smell of a rotting corpse into his face, forcing him to turn away gagging. He watched the water, holding down what little food he’d had before taking in another deep breath.

He leaned in again, to check the tautness of the rope a final time. The bullet wound in the noc’s shoulder festered in yellow tendrils of pus, stretching thickly in strings across the gaping hole. It was where the bulk of the offending odor came; blocking further blood from leaching its way out.

His hand hovered over his sidearm. The dying state of the prisoner wasn’t lost on him. But not for a moment did he regret his action with the gun. Rather, he found his regret rested with his lack of control over Julianna’s insistence on taking the prisoner. She went against his command, and he let her. This gave the voices in his mind a platform. The Militia intelligence she had hidden was his oversight, too. He wondered what other secrets she held in the corner of her mind, where he was unable to reach. Master watcher that he was, reading a Seer was always difficult – Julianna was downright impossible.

The breeze swirled again, taking the thought, to replace it with the smell of putrefying flesh. Caden grimaced under his held breath. The bounds were secure, but a noc’s nature was difficult to restrain. Clever and resourceful creature’s, much like himself, they were also vicious. A noc was not the right captive, injured or not, when they were already running from the Militia.

Pussy whipped, face it. She has you under her spell.

Julianna’s whimper bounced along the cave walls and distracted him from the creature.

Caden watched her huddle into the embrace of a man she had feared days before, nodding to his gentle whispers lapping deep within her mind, reassuring her, settling her fists which pushed against his chest. Julianna’s fever was her saving grace. Caden’s anger rose again.

Damn reckless girl; wait ‘til you’ve got your health back again, then we’ll see who commands this damn camp!

Caden pushed up from his crouch, yet his conscience nagged him, what little he had. He jumped the small crevice running through the rock, stepping carefully over the uneven surface worn from age and water, to stand beside them.

Bas glanced up from cradling Julianna. ‘Her fever’s raging.’

Caden watched her curl further into Bastiaan’s arms, talking to ghosts not there, and crying quietly.

‘Without medical supplies…we need to move into the next town and scavenge.’

Bas frowned. ‘The next town’s fifty miles away. She can’t ride out. We barely made it here.’

‘Danny and Devo, they’ve rested. They can do the trip.’ He knelt down. ‘Here, hold her for me.’

Caden raised the bottle above her head, gently tipping water over her thick, dark tangle of hair. She relaxed into its cool shower, and Bas’s large hand wiping her face.

‘Better, Jay?’ Caden asked.

Julianna nodded for more. Caden obliged.

‘Even if they moved out now,
if
they manage to find anything…if the Militia aren’t crawling over these parts by now…’

Bas wiped her face again. She chewed at her cracked lips, not stopping until a trickle of blood seeped from the cut. The sting shocked her eyes open. Bas laid her down in the blankets while Caden put his wetted fingers to her lips, wiping away the dribble of blood. 

‘If you’re not comfortable with Devo riding out, I’ll go with Danny myself.’

Caden found himself watching Julianna settle into a restless slumber beside him. He tipped more water over his fingers and wet her lips again.

‘With no sleep? You’ll kill each other before you hit the interstate,’ Bas said, eyes rolling in disagreement.

His brother was right. The thought of sleep made his eyes heavy. Caden felt the thick stubble growing on his face with a frustrated hand. The thought of riding out and leaving her, bothered him. Bas knew a few things, but he wasn’t medically trained, not like him. 

Caden touched her cheek, and she pressed into his palm.

‘You’re right,’ Caden said. ‘I need to stay.’

‘She feels safe with you. You owe it to her and Isis. He’ll want the details on this.’

Isis?
He forgot about his fearless leader. The thought stunned him.

‘Yeah, if we can ever contact him. Damn comms are useless now, and if we managed to get it working, every man in the new world order would monitor our conversations. They’d be taking notes and shutting us down.’

Bas nodded quietly.

‘I’m ranting I know, but fuck it. We’re in a hell of a position right now. Everyone’s after us.’ Caden rubbed his hand over his chin stubble again. His hand felt hot from her cheek. ‘I’m not used to this, Bastiaan. Remember when we did the hunting?’             

‘We’re no longer Militia, my brother. We made our choice. I think it was the right one, don’t you?’

Caden frowned at the girl sleeping gently in her makeshift bed of blankets.
Of course I do,
the Old Council is redundant. Old values abandoned for the need to rule under false pretense, factions divided
–
what I spent years attaining, but still
…the nagging in his mind – maybe some of the Militia ideals were right.

I could be mistaken—

‘Caden?’ she called.

The louder voices in his mind abandoned him for her pleading whisper. ‘Right here, J Rae.’

‘I’m dying, aren’t I?’

You were dying last night, Julianna. When Taris stabbed you, over, and, over again. Then I healed you, and I saved you, and we fought together again—

‘Am I?’

‘No.’ He lowered from his knees to spread his long legs on the damp, uneven rock. He tightened the thin blanket over her chest. ‘Talking stupid talk, girl. You have a bad fever, makes it feel like you are.’

Bas ambled for the corner, where the remaining two of their camp were woken. The mission was given in a hushed whisper. They nodded in Julianna’s direction, with the whole
she’s done for
look. Caden glanced down at Julianna, following their stare. She’d settled against his leg, resting her hand around his thigh, with her cheek pressed close. Her eyes were open and staring into the space around her.

She’s listening.

He tipped more water into his hands and stroked her face, cooling her skin. Julianna looked up weakly to meet his eyes. He winked, nodding to her before breaking their connection, to watch the others prepare for their ride out.

Daniel pulled his boots on while Devo checked and holstered her Glock and hunting knife. Bas counted extra ammunition for them to take.

‘What do you need?’ Daniel asked. He checked his spare magazine and walked over to stare at Julianna.

‘Anything you can get your hands on,’ Caden said. ‘Anything that’ll fight this infection and fever.’

Daniel squatted on his haunches. ‘How long’s she got?’

Caden pursed his lips. ‘Just be quick.’

‘As quick as can be,’ Daniel said.

Caden was dubious, but it was Daniel’s sister after all. Maybe this one counted for the man. They lingered in each other’s stare, eyeballing the other, until Devo broke their tension from her call at the narrow gap on the ledge, where the water didn’t flow.

Caden put the bottle to Julianna’s lips but she didn’t drink, and even when Bas tipped her head to help, she refused.